Saturday, 27 October 2012

I'm delighted to be exhibiting How To Say 'I Love You' In Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet at London's wonderful Bookartbookshop. Readers who have yet to visit this cavern of bibliographic enchantments can feast their eyes on the panoramic view of the shop floor, below. The exhibition will open on Friday 16 Novemberand runs until 29 November. There is aPrivate View on Friday 16 November from 18.oo - 22.00, during which copies of How To Say 'I Love You' In Greenlandic will be on sale, and a range of Greenlandic greeting cards will be launched. Refreshments inspired by the Arctic landscape will be served.

There will be an artist's talk and group discussion on the subject of Geopoetics and Artists Books on Wednesday 21st November from 1800. This is a free event but numbers are limited so please contact the gallery to book your place.

As the summer drew to a close, book artists Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck (Ambeck Design) and Mike Nicholson (Ensixteen Editions) visited me in Oxford. How would I entertain the two travellers, one fresh from the flatlands of Jutland, and the other, a vertigo-suffering Londoner?We went as high as it's possible to go in this city of spires, climbing up the tower of the University Church of St. Mary. I hoped the candy-cane pillars, the gargoyles and the crumbling finials might interest Ambeck, whose latest book (pictured above) is a celebration of the stone-carvings found among the curious, shadowed pathways and tombs of Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, North London. Ambeck has worked with Tom Sowden in the studio at Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol to replicate her photo-archive through laser cutting. In this process, the laser sears into the paper fibres, creating a ghostly image that is not only the perfect technique to represent the crumbling, eroded gravestones but also evoking mortality itself.

The clouds lowered as we climbed - on the east side of the tower our faces were stung with rain - from the west we saw patches of sunshine break through thunderous skies to illuminate the cornfields on the far side of the city. Pressed in against the ancient walls as other sightseers passed us on the balcony, we noticed an abundance of graffiti left by earlier climbers.

Deciphering the amateur carvings in the Tower's winding stairwell, the descent was giddying. The image below, from the cover of Mike Nicholson's new edition Glass Half-Full/Glass-Half Empty, was penned many days before our climb, but itcaptures the sense of disorientation we felt on returning to the cobbled ground, and to the present moment.

Readers are encouraged to visit the Small Publishers Fair in London on 16th and 17th November, to take a closer look at both Ambeck's and Nicholson's books.

Friday, 19 October 2012

Monday, 15 October 2012

A busy summer drew to a close with a day off in Derby. These photographs show a selection of works currently on show in The Visual Poetry of 1001 Objects, an exhibition of wood, bone, glass and stone, at Derby Museum until January 2014.

About Me

I'm a writer and book artist. This blog is a home for news of exhibitions and events, and thoughts towards work in progress. There's more information about my work at www.nancycampbell.co.uk @nancycampbelle